OpenAI is partnering with Stack Overflow, the question-and-answer forum for software developers, to improve the performance of its generative AI models on programming-related tasks.
As a result of the partnership announced Monday, OpenAI’s models, including those deployed through the chatbot platform ChatGPT, should get better at answering program-related questions over time, the two companies say. At the same time, Stack Overflow will benefit from OpenAI’s expertise in developing new generative AI integrations on the Stack Overflow platform.
The first integrations will go live at the end of June.
The tie-up with OpenAI is a notable turnaround for Stack Overflow, which originally banned ChatGPT responses on its platform for fear of spam responses.
Stack Overflow began experimenting with generative AI capabilities last April, promising to develop models that “reward” users who contribute knowledge to the platform. In July, the company launched a conversation search tool that allows users to ask questions and get answers based on Stack Overflow’s database of over 58 million questions and answers. In addition, the company offers tools for fine-tuning searches in their own documentation and knowledge bases.
Some members of Stack Overflow’s developer community rebelled against the changes, citing concerns about the validity of AI-generated information, information overload, and privacy for individual contributors on the platform.
There was at least some basis for these concerns. An analysis of more than 150 million lines of code committed to project repos by GitClear over the past few years found that generative AI development tools are causing more broken code to be pushed into codebases. Elsewhere, security researchers have warned that such tools can exacerbate existing bugs and security issues in software projects.
But despite the obvious shortcomings, developers are turning to generative AI tools for at least some coding tasks. In a June 2023 Stack Overflow survey, 44% of developers said they are now using AI tools in their development process, while 26% plan to do so soon.
This has caused something of an existential crisis for Stack Overflow. Traffic to the platform has reportedly declined significantly since last year’s release of powerful new generative AI models – models that, in many cases, were trained on data from Stack Overflow.
To reduce costs, Stack Overflow is now pursuing licensing agreements with AI providers.
The company’s deal with OpenAI – the financial terms of which were not disclosed – comes after Stack Overflow partnered with Google to enrich Google’s Gemini models with Stack Overflow data and work with Google to develop additional AI to bring supported functions to its platform. Stack Overflow emphasized at the time that the agreement was not exclusive – and indeed it turned out that it was.
“Stack Overflow is the world’s largest developer community,” Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, said in a press release this morning. “Through [our] Through our industry-leading partnership with OpenAI, we strive to redefine the developer experience and drive efficiency and collaboration through the power of community, best-in-class data and AI experiences. Our goal with OverflowAPI and our work to advance the age of socially responsible AI is to set new standards with verified, trusted and accurate data that will form the foundation for developing and delivering technology solutions to our users.”